Thomas Jefferson said something that can be simplified into “Every man has the right to the pursuit of happiness”. I know this because I did a report on him in 5th grade while still schooling in New York. What I understood about this at the time was that every individual should have the god-given right to pursue what it is that makes him happy. That every person deserves the freedom to carve his life, the freedom to make whatever choices he has to in searching for happiness. Now Thomas Jefferson may have been referring to black slavery in America at the moment, but this blog entry isn’t about American history.

I remember another thing a wise man said. He said there are 2 types of cages, one in which you can touch and feel the bars and u know u are not free, the other is where you cannot see or feel the bars and think you are free. Ok ok, so this dude is actually talking about government mind control but still you’ll see my point later.

The point of my blog post is to share with you a realization I’ve been able to achieve so that you may hopefully benefit. I have been increasingly HAPPY for months and extremely happy these past few days and I believe the happiness is somewhat permanent. ^^ Usually in a person’s life, they go through stages where they feel they become a new person. People change and its wonderful! Though my own change wasn’t through some rare big event that jolted me deeply enough to change. Nope. The realization was slow and steady.

Throughout my life I’ve gone through stages where I was very dormant, very depressed, cynical, loathing, u name it. To cut things short my life sucked. When I wrote the blog entry “You are the maker of your own happiness”, I knew happiness was a choice. I knew I had to choose happiness. Sometimes change takes some time, so slowly but surely I was able to choose to be happy. Daily misfortunes were the first to change. Whatever that could have made my day bad didnt anymore. Because I chose to be happy when before I would have been un-happy. When things made me angry, I just said to myself “what the heck? I’ve nothing to be angry about. I don’t need this anger.” When I found myself worrying, I said to myself, “Why worry? I know I can turn things around. Allah will provide, there is good in all things that happen.”

So coming back to the famous sayings.

I found that to achieve/pursue happiness you have only to want it and to choose it! Life will give you lemons. Even better than making lemonade is this: throwing the lemons back at life and saying, I DON’T WANT YOUR FUCKING LEMONS! Your emotions are your own. You choose what u feel. Not life. Life doesn’t govern your emotional status. Do NOT let it.

I found that the only cage imprisoning me was one I put around myself. The cage I could not see. Once I saw the bars that I built myself, only then was I able to break those bars. Always be confident. There is NO SUCH THING as overconfidence. You have EVERYTHING u need to go ANYWHERE you want, to do ANYTHING you want. Act. Do. Try. Pursue. Strive and Allah-willing you will achieve. Failure is NOT bad. Failure means you learned how not to succeed. So that you are better equipped to succeed NEXT time!

After I realized that my emotional well being based on my daily life was improving, I realized why not my emotional well being revolving my whole life in general? All my worries about the future, about education, about becoming a doctor, about my social life, about my non-existent love life, about my family problems, about fitting in at college, about getting old (YES, I think about that too), about exams, about thinking “will I make it?” and etc!!!

So bit by bit, praise be to Allah, my life has been improving so much!

Having smoked a cigarette only moments ago I suddenly have the impulse to update my blog. I would’nt quite call myself a smoker, mind you. Yet I do have a knack for trying everything in my own unconventionally peculiar methods. A few minutes ago I was browsing myspace (am personally more fond of facebook) for the simple reason of killing off some boredom whilst sleep continued to elude me. So I happened across an old friend’s profile. I checked out her newest pictures which caught my eye. The girl who is of my age (19), was happily posing for the camera with her friends. Knowing her character, I wasn’t too shocked to see how scantily dressed she (aswell as her friends) was. For the few years Ive known her I was well aware she was on the “wild” side as a young teenager. So then comes a barrage of other thoughts:

Part of me feels like a moron to bitch about issues I might not even be genuinely concerned about. Girls wearing short skirts and so much make-up they look like men… It doesn’t rly matter I suppose. They’ve been around like.. forever. I love to fool around as much as the next crazy teenager but at the same time I’ve to think about my future aswell.

Produced by Malique and D’navigator for Qarma Musiq
Composed by Malique and D’navigator
Music by D’navigator
Lyrics by Malique and Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
Contains a sample taken from Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s speech Perjuangan Belum Selesai